Birthdays
by QueenAurora
Summary: Birthdays are not always something to celebrate for Hiccup, but this one will be one he'll never forget. One-shot


_This is a one-shot in my five-year-old Hiccup series, featuring his birthday. Why? Because it's my birthday today, and I didn't really have a chance to celebrate because of school, and I needed to write another one-shot. So I checked my list of ideas, (yes, I have a list...) and Zyenna had suggested something about Hiccup's fifth birthday, and then I added a little. So here you have it! I hope you enjoy it, and Happy Birthday to you all for every birthday you've had and every one to come!_

_Enjoy!_

**Birthdays**

"Daddy?" a small voice broke the silence in the room as a young boy came in, auburn hair messy, his green eyes round and pleading.

"Not now Hiccup," the man at the table said, not looking up from his papers, "I don't have time to play."

"But daddy..." the boy started, but his father cut him off harshly.

"I said no Hiccup! I don't have time for your silly games! I have ton of paperwork to do, I have another meeting about the dragons, we have to prepare for the next raid... I'm too busy. Go play somewhere else and stop bothering me!"

Had he looked up from his work, he had seen how Hiccup's lip started trembling while his eyes filled with tears at the harsh rejection. The boy stood there for a moment, hoping his father would change his mind, but Stoick remained bowed over the papers on the table and didn't even look at his son. The boy sniffled, turned around and bolted out of the door.

He ran towards the forge, and Gobber. Gobber was always there for him when his father wasn't, Gobber would always listen. So he ran into the forge, crying and immediately clung to the blacksmith's leg. Gobber stopped his work and put down the tools he was holding when he heard Hiccup cry and after wiping his hand clean on his apron, he bent down, taking the child in his arms.

"What's tha matter lad? Why the tears?"

"M... my dad..." the boy started, then he pressed his face against Gobber's shoulder, his voice choked out by tears.

Gobber sighed and gently rocked the boy, trying to calm him. He could have known. Every time Hiccup came to him crying, it had something to do with his father. The man really had to learn how to handle a growing child, especially one so young as Hiccup.

"What did he do?" he asked softly, although he had vague idea.

"He..." Hiccup started, and wiped his nose on his sleeve, "he forgot my birthday."

Bingo.

Just as he had thought. He sighed while he dried Hiccup's face, tenderly ruffling his hair before setting him on the table.

"Did he really," he muttered while he turned around, searching for something, "someone really has to remind him then, don't you think?" he glanced at the boy, now swinging his little legs back and forth, "don't ya worry Hiccup, I didn't forget your birthday."

Hiccup perked up. "Really?"

Gobber nodded, smiling when he found what he was looking for. "Really. You're five now, aren't you?" Hiccup nodded. "That's a great age you know. Here ya go, that's for you."

He handed the boy something that was wrapped in brown paper and Hiccup took it curiously. "What is it?"

"Why don't you open it?" Gobber suggested, and Hiccup started plucking the twine that held the paper in place.

His eyes widened when the paper fell away and revealed a small notebook, bound in brown leather with a little clasp to close it. He stared at it, his green eyes sparkling with delight when he looked up at Gobber.

"I go' it from Trader Johann," the blacksmith explained, "last year, when he was here. Happy Birthday Hiccup."

The boy bounced up and down so vigorously that Gobber thought he would sure fall off the table, and he quickly put him on the ground. Hiccup hugged Gobber's leg, the only thing he could reach from the ground, and the man smiled. When Hiccup looked up, his tears were forgotten, and his eyes shone with the excitement and wonder that he loved in the boy.

"Thanks Gobber," the boy whispered, before he dashed out of the forge.

"You're welcome lad," Gobber mumbled while he picked up the hammer, "you're very welcome."

0-0-0-0-0-0

Hiccup stared at the small brown notebook with the little clasp that lay in his lap. It had been a gift from Gobber, for his fifth birthday, and he had used it intensely. Now though, now it was full. It had taken two years to fill it, as he had reserved it for his most precious ideas and feelings, but it was full. Two days before his seventh birthday, he had finished the book.

He picked it up, undid the little clasp and flipper through the pages. It had been his diary. The place he wrote the anger he never showed openly, a place he could deposit the tears that only fell in his room. The book had meant a lot to him, now it only meant more, and he had taken it out only in the week of his birthday.

Sighing, he carefully folded the new paper and slid it in between a few pages of the notebook. The fact that is was full hadn't stopped him from using it, and every year he added a paper the day before his birthday. Tomorrow would be his twelfth.

He closed it, careful so that the loose pages and extra sheets of paper he had added didn't fall out and stood up. He placed the book back where it belonged, under his pillow, and went downstairs. He wasn't sure if he wanted to go, after all, his father had been angry again during breakfast this morning when he had brought up his birthday, but he was afraid the man would forget again. Just like last year. And the year before that, and the year before that... and the one before that... it seemed like he had made it a sport to forget his birthday. And it had all started on his fifth birthday, when he had gotten the notebook from Gobber.

But when he came down, the house was empty and his father was nowhere to be found. He sighed. He hadn't really expected that the man would stick around. He never did after arguments. So he did what he always did. He went back to the forge, back to Gobber. Because at least Gobber listened, and never forgot his birthday.

He woke up the next day when the sun tickled his face, and he groaned. He was twelve today. He didn't want to be twelve. He didn't want it to be his birthday, because his dad would just forget again and the only present he would get would be from Gobber. He loved the presents from Gobber, they would always be something he liked, but he just wanted his father to show he cared. Because what father didn't love their own son?

But when he finally came down the stairs, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he suddenly stood frozen. He had been ready for a breakfast with some slightly stale bread, maybe some stew from yesterday, maybe some mead if he could sneak it from his fathers cabinet. He was most definitely not prepared for the fact that the man was still in the house, and he stood still as a statue on the stairs while he stared at his fathers broad shoulders.

He contemplated running up to his room and sneak out the back, but then Stoick turned around and saw him. The man stood up, coming towards the stairs and holding a hand up to his son. Hiccup took his outstretched hand, feeling a little awkward because he rarely ever touched his father, but he let him. The man led him to the table and sat him down, then he folded his hands behind his back.

"Hiccup..." the man started, but then his voice trailed off.

"Yes dad?"

"I have something to tell you..." Stoick sighed, running a hand over his face, "I know I haven't exactly been around for your birthdays, and... eh... well... I wanted to change that this year."

Hiccup felt his cheeks turn red as he stared at his father, and something inside him stirred. He had remembered. He had remembered his birthday. He bit his lip as he felt the tears rise, but he fought to hold them back, refusing to cry in front of his father.

"I... I have something for you," Stoick said softly as he sat down next to Hiccup. He was holding something flat, wrapped in brown paper.

"What is it," Hiccup whispered, his voice thick with tears.

"Open it," Stoick said, his voice just as soft as his son's.

With shaking fingers Hiccup plucked the twine from the package, then carefully removed the paper. His heart skipped a thousand beats as he saw what was inside.

It was a painting.

It was just a small painting, made on a broken board from when one of the houses had been damaged in a dragonraid, but it was a painting of his mom and dad, the woman holding a small bundle in her arms.

"Is that..." he asked breathlessly, and Stoick nodded.

"Your mother," he said as he let a finger glide over the painted woman's face.

"Is... is that me?" Hiccup as while he gently fingered at the painted bundle in the woman's arms.

Stoick nodded. "You were just a month old when we had that made. Such a tiny baby. Born too soon. I was afraid you'd die, but your mother believed in you, even then. She loved you Hiccup, she loved you very much."

Hiccup's lip started trembling as he let his finger glide over the painting, and before he could stop them, the tears had started falling, silently slipping down his cheeks. Before Stoick could say anything, Hiccup wrapped his arms around his father, not even reaching halfway around the man and started crying in his beard. Stoick returned the boy's embrace, carefully pulling him on his lap.

"I miss her," Hiccup sobbed silently, "it's not fair."

"I know son, I know," Stoick murmured while he was smoothing Hiccup's reluctant auburn locks, "I miss her too."

They sat for a while, father and son, until Hiccup pulled away from his father's strong arms and looked at the painting again, for the first time really looking at it. The woman had auburn hair, like his own, that was long and reached her waist. She was wearing a green dress and the warmest smile he had ever seen. He held the painting close to his chest, wrapping his arms around it, never wanting to let it go again.

Stoick lifted his chin with a single finger, and used his big hand to wipe the tears from Hiccup's face. Then he pulled his son in an embrace once again, and Hiccup sighed in his beard.

"I love you dad," he muttered, his voice muffled by the thick hair of Stoick's beard.

"I love you too son," Stoick replied, then he placed a kiss on the top of Hiccup's head and let him slip to the ground again, "I believe Gobber has something for you as well. Why don't you go and see?" Hiccup nodded, already making his way towards the door when his father called for him again.

"Hiccup! Why don't you join me in the Great Hall When you're done? I believe there are a few things we need to catch up to."

Hiccup just nodded, a small smile on his lips, then he hurried out the door. He was still holding the painting close to his chest as he ran towards the forge as fast as he could.

Gobber looked up when the boy entered and he could immediately see that he had been crying again. With a sigh, he put down the piece of metal he was melting. It was nothing new that Hiccup came to him in tears, it had happened every year. It wasn't until he bent down to pull the boy into an embrace that he noticed he was holding something.

"What do ya have there?"

Hiccup sniffled and wiped the remaining tears away with his sleeve. "Dad gave me this," he said softly as he handed the painting to Gobber.

The blacksmith gasped when he saw what it was. He knew the painting, he had been there the day it had been painted, and he remembered the happiness that radiated from the couple and their newborn son. After Valka had been taken, Stoick had locked the painting away, keeping it in a chest in his bedroom. That he had taken it out and given it to Hiccup only showed how much he regretted his actions the past few birthdays.

"It's my mom," Hiccup said and Gobber gave him the small piece of wood back.

"So it is," he said, quickly standing up and pretending to need something from the work bench behind him, "there's somethin in the backroom for ya, why don't you take a look?"

Hiccup's face lit up as he dashed towards the curtain and Gobber smiled. A few years ago he had cleaned out the old storage space, cleaned it and given it to Hiccup as his personal workspace, a place where he could tinker to his hearts content.

Now dubbed the backroom, the space was filled with Hiccup's little inventions that cluttered the desk and the floors, but this year Gobber had changed that. It grew awfully quiet in the forge, and he stepped over to the curtain.

"Hiccup? Are you okay lad?"

Pushing the curtain aside with his hook prosthetic, he found the boy standing standing in the middle of the room, staring at the wall that was now decorated with shelves and boxes for storage. His projects were carefully arranged on the shelves, placed there by Gobber who knew how much the little models meant to Hiccup.

"It's... wonderful..." he muttered while he turned to Gobber, "it's just what I needed. Thank you so much."

"Any time laddy, any time."

The blacksmith left, and Hiccup looked from the painting in his hands to the shelves on the wall. Then he walked towards them, rearranging the tiny machines to create a space in the middle. There he placed the painting, stepping back as soon as it had left his hands. He took a deep breath as he stared at the painting, surrounded by his inventions.

After standing there for a while, he stepped out of the backroom and into the forge. He gave Gobber a quick hug before he ran out of the forge. He needed to get to the Great Hall, for his first real birthday meal with his father.

A wide smile played on his lips when he pushed oped the doors, and found Stoick sitting at one of the tables. He had an extra plate with a generous portion of roasted chicken and some fresh bread that was still warm and a cup set at the place at his side.

As soon as his son sat down next to him, he pushed the plate towards him and affectionately ruffled his hair.

"Happy Birthday Hiccup."


End file.
